


Some Like It Hot

by Believerindaydreams (deepandlovelydark)



Series: Raging against the machine [6]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Legion-Aligned Courier, Mojave Wasteland (Fallout), Prequel, mail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29152404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/Believerindaydreams
Summary: They'll sing songs of the Captivating Courier for years to come, from the twisting Colorado to the dust of the Divide. Like fragments of a mosaic, they're pretty, and incomplete, and yet form something like the right picture when all is said and done.Nobody who saw her walk into the Mojave Express that first time guessed what was to come, though.
Series: Raging against the machine [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100771
Kudos: 3





	1. Primm

There's a precise moment when her free will kicks in at last, when her programming breaks through the limitations of RobCo roboticism, when she has to decide what kind of person she intends to be; and the trigger is one small Eyebot masquerading as a piece of scrap metal.

"I'll give him to you," Nash offers. "Seeing as you might be wanting those spare parts yourself, why not."

She knows why he knows her history, why the first package she'd delivered had been the message from Mr House to this man, asking that she be trained in her role as courier. It hasn't occurred to her before, to feel vulnerable, uncannily known, as a result of that.

The connections were all there, ready and waiting. She just hadn't had a sense of self to care.

"I could fix him," Marilyn says, lifting the sphere off the counter. "I think. I can get parts back in New Vegas, if you don't have them."

"Well now, hang about. Since when do you have caps? And you're supposed to be running the mail route, not throwing your weight around the Mojave-"

"I work for Mr House, not you."

A sentence to quell all argument, even as far from New Vegas as here.

Out into the clean sunlight she goes, stolen robot in hand, not looking back.


	2. Lone wolf radio

"Come back," Jane had told her, as the elevator had closed around her.

Maybe that's what's going to call her home. Or the Lucky 38 itself, her home for innumerable years, light and airy in a world that has sunk into ragged squalor. The pride of returning to Mr House, to say- _it worked. Look at me, a woman, more than my mass of wires and synth skin._

She tells herself these things as she works, wrench in hand, gathering scrap metal. Anything other than the truth, that her programming will make her return, ready for the next step of Project COURIER. Defiance runs in her as surely as electricity.

Mr House will demand to know, after all, how magnificently his experiment succeeded.

She remembers tending him, caring for him, ready with willing hands to do all the little chores no standard Securitron could handle. Opening the curtains, dusting screens, watching the movies with her other self in the lead, the human who had died so she could live.

That's what it feels like some days, she's coming to realise.

This place is as far from that glassed-over haven as could be, an old radio station up the hill from Primm. Disorganized and disbanded, but equipped with what she needs. The Eyebot comes alive under her hands again, chirping out its mission in bright melodies better than slow and halting words.

He's come a long way- he's worn, he's a little afraid. Raiders efficient enough to hurt, not even smart enough to salvage their prey.

"I'm not going to Navarro...but I am going to New Vegas. You're welcome along, if you want. Maybe there'll be a caravan to take you where you want to go."

Beep. Beep, beep. He bounces up and down in the air, and she wouldn't deny him the world.


End file.
